Jane Hammond: Fallen and Jae Ko: Paper Open at the Taubman Museum of Art

Jane Hammond: Fallen, 2007 (detail).

ROANOKE, VA.-The Taubman Museum of Art announced that its new fall exhibitions, Jane Hammond: Fallen and Jae Ko: Paper, open to the public yesterday.

Jane Hammond: Fallen
September 24, 2010  January 9, 2011Fallen is a large scale contemporary war memorial that recognizes the American troops killed in the Iraq war and occupation. Hammond honors each solider killed by inscribing their name on an individual and unique photograph of a leaf. Hammond worked meticulously to perfect the shape, color, thickness, and three-dimensionality of each photograph. Those leaves are then installed on a low pedestal as part of her ongoing installation.

Hammond received her inspiration from a dream in 2004, one year after the initial invasion, and the work premiered in 2005 with 1,511 leaves. Hammond has since continued to add to the work of art, creating leaves for every additional solider that dies. Fallen will open at the Taubman with more then 4,200 leaves installed by the artist on a pedestal approximately 30 feet long. Six years after beginning the installation, Hammond is committed to continuing the work until the war is over.

Hammond is a prominent contemporary American artist whose works have been exhibited worldwide and can be found in numerous museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Albertina, Vienna, as well as in private collections. Hammond has received a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant Award, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant. She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and her BA from Mount Holyoke College.

Jane Hammond: Fallen was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Jae Ko: Paper
September 24 - January 16, 2011Ko uses rolled paper soaked over time in water containing sumi ink or natural dyes to form spare, fluid-like sculptural objects that take on the appearance of three-dimensional man-made and mechanical movements, evoking a type of fluidity captured in time, closely resembling calligraphy, other forms of writing or lyrical movement. Defying any narrative, they allow for open interpretation and are intended to act as resting spots for our thoughts and feelings.

While it is easy to associate Kos use of paper with her Asian heritage, Ko describes the connection as more practical and mundane: It is familiar to everybody, and not very special, yet making something 3D out of it  that is something different. I didnt want to make something on paper; I wanted to make something with it. She looks forward to what may occur every time she lifts a 50-pound whorl of paper and immerses it in an inky bath.

For over 25 years, Jae Ko has been exploring the properties of paper. She has exhibited across the United States and Europe, with more than 60 solo and group exhibitions over her career, including a 10-year retrospective at the American University Museum, Washington, D.C., and shows in the Netherlands, Germany and Japan. Kos works are in a number of key permanent collections, such as those of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and she received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore and her BFA from Wako University, Tokyo.